Sunday, March 12, 2017

Depression is. . .

being so stressed that your muscles all hurt when touched, and your shoulder are so tense they ache from nothing at all.

knowing that you're off-kilter and so you decide it's worth it to take extra time to carefully lay everything out, each class's folder and today's handouts and the reading in careful piles you can just pick up and take. When you get to class, you realize the pile you picked up is the wrong one.

even after the time you really did leave the burner on, though it didn't hurt anything, and you've tried to be super-careful most nights when you cook, you sit down and he says "the burner is on" and gets up to turn it off. There's no question. You did it again.

forgetting that you're preheating the oven to heat up a burrito and walking into the kitchen authentically surprised to see the burrito waiting there twice in ten minutes.

working plenty of hours this week (42 hours though I didn't factor in every email) but still insanely behind because you work.so.goddamn.slowly. And I can't push myself very hard either because just going forward at all is such a struggle and clearly I can blow a gasket because I am so close to gasket-blowing every time some jerk does something foolish on the highway so I just try to keep as even keeled as possible and ask others to step in where they can. Poor Husband.

hating being sick. Hating being a burden and a source of worry. Don't worry. Don't hate me because I'm going a little crazy now. I'm sorry. Every meeting I go to, every class I teach I just want to say look, I am so sorry. You totally deserve better than this, but this is all I've got. I know it's shite but I really am doing the very best that I can. I don't even want to talk about how I feel about my parenting just now. Right now Spirited! is being parented by Yoda. He's gone ape over Star Wars.

walking from your office through the hallway to the classroom realizing you could cry right now, you could just burst into tears right at this minute but you're not going to and you're just going to pull yourself together and take a deep breath and go teach your class.
choosing to treat yourself carefully so you don't get so flaming pissed that you're screaming your head off in your car or having a panic attack while driving in the snow.

I'm sorry it's so bad, and impressed that you're slogging on anyway. It may not feel,like it will ever get better, but it will. Your kid has Yoda and your students have other teachers---it's not all on you to do everything and be everything to everyone. Hang in, and best of luck.

As the spouse of a sometimes-depressed person, let me say that it's hard but that I'm glad to do what I can to ease her suffering in any way I can. And I'm sure Absurdist Spouse feels the same way. Keep taking care of yourself, and let others take care of you as well.

Much empathy. This will pass, and you are doing the best you can, and naming it and seeking treatment is so hard but you're doing it.

Thank you for sharing where you are - knowing other people go through these episodes is so important for me, for helping break out of the "I am uniquely crap and awful and stupid" state my brain tries to keep pushing my under with.

I second all of Dame Eleanor's, What Now?'s, and JaneB's suggestions and comments, but especially the advice to let others take care of you, to realize that your students have other teachers.

I also appreciate your talking about this almost taboo subject, especially in shining a light upon how it is not sadness, but a complicated mass that includes all feelings as well as an absence of feeling.

Meds can take some tinkering and some time, but I've found they help. Most of all, try not to feel alone.

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About Me

I am Earnest English and am, miraculously (considering I started this blog when writing my dissertation), a tenured associate professor at Specialized College in Snow Town. I'm also the mom of a gifted and incredibly high-energy seven-year old, who has earned the name Spirited!, and who my husband and I trying to raise to be peace-loving and connected to nature. Absurdist Husband and I are going to turn our house into the somewhat-self-sufficient homestead of our dreams, complete with serious kitchen gardening. I'm passionately committed to whole organic food that comes, as often as possible, from local family farms and to living a slower-paced, less gadgety, more contemplative life than usually seems possible in this high-tech speedy and spendy world of ours. Welcome.
I can be reached at earnestenglish@gmail.com.